Rented flat issue with tenants and their neighbours

[Tinkah]

Sorry if this is on the wrong place but I could do with the traffic and any advice is much appreciate. Sorry if this is long.

I let out a small flat I used to live in before o met DH. I let it out to a young couple through an agency. I have never met them but they had references checked before moving in etc. It's all through a reputable agency and they are on a fixed term tenancy.

The flat is one of five in a converted house. They are on the middle floor and there are two flats making up the ground floor. When I lived there one couple on the ground floor were very aggressive with me and complained a lot over minor issues eg. Someone else used the last of the bin space. I was a bit intimidated by this woman and her husband. The other neighbour is fine.

Anyway both neighbours have been complaining intermittently about my tenants- complaining loads! They email me the complaints. They say the tenants are very noisy, rude and aggressive of confronted and don't turn music down when asked. I live at the other side of the country so contact the management company and tell them. Then they ask the tenants to be more considerate. Usually the tenants deny making the noise.

The flat was inspected and was immaculate and well kept and the tenants always pay their rent so two weeks ago I renewed their tenancy for a year. Last night I got an angry email from the downstairs neighbour about noise again saying she's threatening legal action? Every time she makes a complaint I try to act on it but all advice I have is that she should complain to environmental health if its bad but apparently you need three properties to complain to do that? There is a flat next to the one the tenants are on and they have never raised an issue.

Both downstairs flats seem at the need of their tether and are threatening legal action (I have no idea what) and saying they are going to move its that bad. They have today asked me not to renew the tenancy not knowing I did so last week. I feel a bit guilty but I don't know how bad it actually is. I asked them to record it on their phone and they said it wasn't loud enough!

What can I do to calm this situation? Can the neighbours take legal action? The management company said "that's living in flats!" And say the only quiet hours are between 11pm and 7am. Please help!

I suspect the reason they haven't reported this to EH is that they know perfectly well EH will say it's not unsociable noise, and they think you're easier to push around than EH would be.

Many many decades ago, I worked in connection with landlord/tenancy relations. Some downstairs tenants complained incessantly about noise from their upstairs neighbours. They said they had recorded the noise, and a carrier bag full of cassette tapes (yes, it was that long ago) landed on my desk. There were so many, I had to take them home to listen to. Most of them were totally silent, punctuated from time to time with a hoarse whisper, "no noise yet". I gave up after the first half dozen tapes. I still feel slightly hysterical thinking back!

Living in flats requires a certain amount of give and take. Noise transfer is inevitable and you have to be prepared to put up with a reasonable amount of 'ordinary' noise. Flat conversions are notorious for noise 'leakage' because there is usually not enough dampening between the floors and walls to help insulate against sound travel.

People who get agitated at the slightest little sound are not suited to living in flats. Your neighbours are going to walk across their floors, put their TV on, hoover, do laundry, have people round - that's all normal. If your tenants aren't taking the piss with their noise then the neighbours need to either suck it up or move.

TBH if I were your tenants and constantly on the receiving end of a stream of messages about being quieter - knowing that I was already quiet - then I would have moved out. It's not fair to constantly nag them about noise when you already know the neighbours are arses about normal day-to-day noise.

In your position (have been there), I would firmly tell neighbours to deal with the council's noise team if they think it's so bad and that any further messages or calls to you will be ignored. If you're paying a managing agent then direct the neighbours to them - you're paying for a service, let the agent deal with the stream of complaints.

The neighbours have to put up their evidence, or shut up.

Your tenants should start keeping a diary of their own, a diary of harassment. You have renewed your tenants' lease (though it might be said you were lucky they agreed to the renewal), but another LL might not have done.

It's simply disgusting, and terrifying, to think that nornal people, who just happen not to own property, can be at risk of losing their home (LLs can refuse to renew a lease for whatever reason, even if that reason is appeasing fruitloop neighbours) with absolutely no proof offered! What the neighbours are doing is malicious and sly, and I hope they are made to account for their actions.

Actually I am inclined to believe the neighbours. It seems farfetched that they would both be not just complaining but at the end of their tether about normal noise levels. They are also, in asking you not to renew, risking new tenants who are an unknow factor....why do that if the current ones are actually ok? Loud music can be a real problem, and it isn't just walking about or doing the hoovering, which would be fine. I don't think you should have renewed the tenancy without looking into this further.

The neighbours refuse to attend mediation? I'd tell them to jog on then.

Bay - I don't believe them, and I say that as someone that spent 3 years in a ground floor flat. If there is poor sound insulation then just the sound of someone walking across their floor can sound very loud. Ditto hoovering, washing machines, action films on the TV etc.

It is simply not fair or reasonable to expect someone to tiptoe across their floor, never have the TV on, only do household chores when you are out. The sound issue is part and parcel of living in a flat. Bear in mind that OP has already advised that the neighbours were difficult when she lived there herself, and that when asked to go to the noise team, the neighbours have said that it's not loud enough to record! This all suggests that it is normal household noise. If they were truly at the end of their tether, then they should be going to the council's noise team.

If you're going to feel sorry for anyone, then try the tenants - who are on the receiving end of a constant stream of requests to stop making noise. It must be making their home life pretty unpleasant knowing that every time they open their door and walk in, the neighbours are probably frothing away about the noise of them just existing upstairs.

Bay...... the neighbours have so far refused to contact then enviromental health and have refused to attend mediation to try and get the problem resolved.

TBH, I'd do my best to make this a problem of the tenant and neighbours, not you. You're not there. You don't know who is and isn't BU. I'd do my best to extricate myself from this and let neighbour, tenant and Env. Health get on with it to resolve this (or not) to mutual satisfaction.

I had this. Was sympathetic at first but my tenants denied it and in the end I just told them to report to council.

You don't contact the bank if someone has a problem with a neighbour who has a mortgage.

It is odd that they will not try mediation.

I live in a flat, I hope the people below are not too disturbed by our everyday living. We hear little bits from above but nothing disturbing really.

I cynically think that not trying mediation means that they're rather enjoying making a fuss. Also, mediation with you, or the tenants? Surely the former is nonsensical?

Essential I agree. It becomes a hobby and the smallest of noises is immediately seized as evidence of anti-social behaviour and unacceptable noise. My former neighbours honestly believed that the people upstairs should text them notice of when they intended to use the bathroom

I agree with previous posters, the neighbours aren't suited to living in flats. A certain amount of noise is inevitable if they can't cope with that they need to move.

Converted houses are terrible for noise. I rented one once and was shocked by how noisy it was. I'm talking about hearing the neighbours put keys down on counters and shutting kitchen cabinets. I realised it wasn't for me, was miserable living there but didn't complain. Simply moved as soon as I could.

Surely this is what you pay the management company for? I would tell the neighbours your not interested and to contact your rental agents hun, they will soon stop pestering you once they realise you will not deal with it.

whoever it was - I have no idea if the complaint is justified or not. But the OP says the lease has just been renewed for the year. So unless both a) the OP wants to evict and b) the tenants can be proved to have breached the tenancy with anti social behaviour, they aren't going anywhere despite what the neighbours want.

despite the anti-LL bleating, no LL evicts 'on a whim'. It costs a lot, it takes a long time and it carries a high risk of no rent and a wrecked property. It is a last resort.

Thank you for all of your advice. I've had an email from one of the neighbours this morning saying she is fed up with the noise again.

I have checked the council page for reporting noise and it does say that they only act when: three or more calls are received in the space of a month from different households.

That is from the council so their two complaints alone would not be investigated.

I don't want to evict the tenants as far as I am concerned they are good tenants ( the flat is well looked after and rent is paid on time) so I'm not going to evict. The neighbours are threatening legal action I don't know if that's against me or the tenants.

I'm going to ask them to direct all their complaints to the management company from now on.

What can the management company do?

What can the management company do?

They can manage the situation. That's what they're paid to do.

I think you have done what you can, direct all future complaints to the management co, suggest the neighbors get a life ask for someone to come do the sit and listen thing. Sometimes neighbours can be very intolerant of tenants and you say you also had problems with them.

When my kids were small, we rented a small terraced house for 9 months between a home sale and home purchase. The ndn, an old friend of the owner who had moved away, was constantly calling the landlady (she also had the property with a management co) complaining about us.

It wasn't noise it was the pettiest, weirdest stuff. We kept leaving our back gate open and the neighbourhood kids were wandering in. Well yes, our back gate was opposite (divided by an alley) the back gate of another mum with 2 young dc the same ages as mine, the kids would play in and out of the two yards. It was ideal for both of us to keep an eye on them and meant they weren't playing in the street which she would also have objected to.

Another was the famous 'enticing cats onto the property' incident. A lady down the street had several cats and, as cats do, they'd jump over walls into other yards including ours. I'd been seen from ndn's kitchen window actually talking to (I may also have had a sly stroke or too) one of these felines instead of instantly shooting it dead and mounting its head on a spike as a warning to other feline trespassers.

Then there was the 'mystery of the silent Hoover'. The landlady called me to ask why her old ndn hadn't heard my vacuum running upstairs for 3 days! I said maybe it was because I hadn't vacuumed upstairs for 3 days. So she arranged an extra inspection visit from the management co to check because we weren't keeping the place clean and tidy enough between the normal 3 monthly ones. Longest 9 months of my life.